I’ve always maintained, in real and imagined interviews and I guess the part of my soul that’s always trying to define itself, that I will always write Plays. I’ve said things like plays are where I am fully happy and how I express myself and everything I need and want to say as a writer starts as a play. I’ve thought, the moment I stop writing plays is the moment I’m no longer myself. But lately I’ve been feeling so disconnected from them. I haven’t let go by any means but when I sit down to start a new one or fix an old one, I just look at the stage directions and wonder how and why. I’m sure a part of it is pandemic related, and general worry over when people will feel comfortable again squeezed together, crying out their respiratory droplets. But I think it’s more than that, I think it’s a product of years of earning a living writing for the screen. The way in which I hear and see things, and even tell stories in my head, has gradually started to change. I think also I’m a Mom, and I’m tired, and I have less Time, and I’m hard on myself, and nothing seems good enough, and Joe is the only thing I often want to write. But yesterday a college professor reached out and asked me send a bunch of my old short plays. And instead of just sending them like I usually do, I decided to actually read through them first. And I remembered how I used to write without thinking, with pure feeling, like I was the only writer in the world, like I had invented a game with no rules. And I MISS THAT. I think this is just a phase and not some unconscious letting go. But also, I’m headed to NYC in September for TWO FULL WEEKS of IN-PERSON Notebook work, which I think might remind me that I am MOST myself and most at home in the dark, with other people, waiting for the next line to be Forgotten, or Said.